On the surface, Bollea v. Gawker was a lawsuit about invasion of privacy of a reality tv personality (oxymoron, no?). Pull back Hulk Hogan’s ridiculous bandanna and you’ll not only find a bald head but Peter Thiel’s bulging forehead vein, a lust for vengeance and very deep pockets.

The end result: the death of Gawker Media due to an award of $115+/- million in compensation for the deeply traumatized, champion of diversity, Hulk Hogan. Believe it or not, people celebrated this. They celebrated the collapse of a controversial media outlet. They were overjoyed that Nick Denton lost his empire. They delighted in AJ Daulerio’s bank account being frozen (worth all of $1,505.78).

All this celebration while missing the critical point: free press has been compromised by a Silicon Valley billionaire with a grudge. The precedent has been set: regardless of fact, regardless of reason – if you don’t like what is in print simply bury the outlet and move on with your bad self. So long as you have the dollars, of course. Thiel had the resources to kill Gawker. Thiel had the fire in the belly to stick it to Nick Denton (a post in Valleywag from 2007). All he needed was the case. Hogan’s was it. Nine years later, Thiel gets his and the cornerstone of our democracy – fuck it.

Meanwhile, Thiel’s company, Palantir Technologies, has been working for ICE’s HSI (since 2011) on a project called FALCON. The scope (via Raw Story): develop and implement a “complex intelligence system which allows ICE to store, search and analyze troves of data that include family relationships, employment information, immigration history, criminal records and home and work addresses.” In 2014, Palantir entered into another agreement with ICE’s HSI to build a case management system which processes civil and criminal cases.

Peter Thiel has been a very busy, totally gay man, people. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the “totally gay” comment is what sent Thiel into rage overdrive with respect to Gawker Media.

Now, Thiel has a new folly. Thiel is part of President-Elect Shitgibbon’s transition team. Should you be concerned? If his past actions are any indication of his determination, Thiel is going to get what Thiel wants. We know Thiel wants money and I’ll even go so far as to say “Good for you, totally gay, money making dynamo! You make your dollars!”

This is a powerful exploration of the debilitating impact that politically-correct “multiculturalism” has had upon higher education and academic freedom in the United States. In the name of diversity, many leading academic and cultural institutions are working to silence dissent and stifle intellectual life. This book exposes the real impact of multiculturalism on the institution most closely identified with the politically correct decline of higher education—Stanford University. Authored by two Stanford graduates, this book is a compelling insider’s tour of a world of speech codes, “dumbed-down” admissions standards and curricula, campus witch hunts, and anti-Western zealotry that masquerades as legitimate scholarly inquiry. Sacks and Thiel use numerous primary sources—the Stanford Daily, class readings, official university publications—to reveal a pattern of politicized classes, housing, budget priorities, and more. They trace the connections between such disparate trends as political correctness, the gender wars, Generation X nihilism, and culture wars, showing how these have played a role in shaping multiculturalism at institutions like Stanford. The authors convincingly show that multiculturalism is not about learning more; it is actually about learning less. They end their comprehensive study by detailing the changes necessary to reverse the tragic disintegration of American universities and restore true academic excellence.

A passage plucked from the book and shared for your reading pleasure by Advocate:

But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might ‘realize’ that she had been ‘raped’ the next day or even many days later. Under these circumstances, it is unclear who should be held responsible. If the alcohol made both of them do it, then why should the woman’s consent be obviated any more than the man’s? Why is all blame placed on the man?

Real diversity requires a diversity of ideas, not simply a bunch of like-minded activists who resemble the bar scene from Star Wars.

…and…

As paradoxical as it may seem, the extreme focus on racism has become the source of acrimony, as multiculturalists charge whites with more evanescent and intangible forms of racism, such as ‘institutional racism’ or ‘unconscious racism’. As a result, the awareness of racism, once the main hope for ending racial division, today has become a major cause of debate and friction.

In October 2016, Forbes contacted Thiel about “The Diversity Myth” and his spokesperson responded with:

More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements,” Thiel said in a statement. “As I’ve said before, I wish I’d never written those things. I’m sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise.

Granted, Peter Thiel did say “I am proud to be gay.” during his speech at the Republican National Convention this past July but is that enough? While it is certainly brave to own homosexuality at the Republican National Convention, the act itself does not mean the person doing it is free from bias and prejudice. One can very easily fall into the category of marginalized while harboring feelings of bias. Most do it daily, completely unaware of their own behavior, on some level.

There is no disputing Thiel’s genius which may be the saddest thing of all. No one is demanding he cast aside his Libertarian ideology (although, I do think a 49 year-old Libertarian is intellectually stunted. That way of thinking should be left in one’s 20s.). What Thiel does need to do is become less of a demented, evil fuckstick intent on using this country as his token while he plays his distorted version of Monopoly. Visiting a psychiatrist may also come in handy to get that anger under control.

Shutting down a media outlet because you don’t like what it prints is not the way this country works. Manipulating a legal system for your own personal satisfaction is absolute bullshit. It’s one thing to be a profitable supplier to a government agency. It’s another thing to be a supplier of goods and services which harm society. Enabling a government’s effort to harm people, citizens or non, is unethical but I suppose ethics get a little fuzzy when your vision is blurred by dollar signs and dancing bags of money.

As for the whole diversity issue, from a casual observer’s perspective, it looks as if Peter Thiel has end-stage Implicit Bias (best case scenario). I shudder to think if this is intentional, although I should not be surprised. Not in Shitgibbon’s Amerikkka, at the very least.

And, with one long, detailed, not-so-snarky post, Mr Peter Thiel, congratulations! You are cordially invited to go fuck yourself in the totally gayest way you could imagine. I’m putting my money on ball gags and leather because I’m also thinking Peter Thiel is a very, very, very, totally gay and totally naughty boy.

We interrupt the current rational posts with one from the perspective of a person who has been dealing with a wee bit of PTSD over the past three or four weeks. A person who does not care to have her cheese moved before 08.00 in the morning. A person who wants to listen to her music when she wants to listen to it and will not be denied.

This morning, I needed (yes, needed) to listen to the Purple Rain soundtrack – the songs Computer Blue and Baby I’m a Star, to be precise. Yet, being the addle-minded, drooling idiot I have become lately, I stupidly updated my music player the other day without much thought. I put on my DJ P0n-3 headphones, pulled up the horrifying menu and started hyperventilating. Where is my fucking Prince??? No, not that one. We all know that notion is a giant, fucking joke. I mean PRINCE. The Purple One.

Fuck me.

So, after one panic attack averted, I finally locate the album and the required songs only to be rewarded with Computer Blue on infinite loop.

Look, Apple, I get it. You’re trying to play catch up. You’re slightly out-moded in this particular arena. That’s fine. Progress is pain. No, seriously, I get it. I’m in the middle of a corporate re-org. I KNOW PAIN. Change is a significant emotional event for all of us. That said, why must you monkey with my little island of sanity? Why tamper with what is of paramount importance to me? When this bitch needs to listen to Nine Inch Nails to scare teachers, she needs to listen to Nine Inch Nails. When she needs to listen to Prince to get revved up for her five mile walk, she needs her Prince. When you deny her this – tantrums will be thrown. And, as I mentioned earlier, in the throes of PTSD flashbacks, denial and upset is not something graciously accepted.

Behold…the end of the calendar and fiscal year. All reports (time and expense) must be filed by close of business today to make the finance trolls less stabby. Surely you did not expect things to function properly? Why would the most erratic VPN on Earth be anything but? And why, why would you operate under the silly assumption that your piece of shit Lenovo StinkPad not crash 40 times whilst reworking a file the size of…I dunno…something really large? At this point, I’m really at a loss for words. And hope. That’s lost, as well. And sanity. Let’s review what is lost: hope, words, sanity. Yup.

Please, please keep crashing, StinkPad. Please inhibit any progress I may attempt to make today. Please make doing rework more exhilarating. I would love nothing more than to be sitting in the exact same position, performing the exact same exercise in futility at 10 pm. Really. I would. Don’t believe otherwise for this is the stuff I live for. This is the stuff of dreams.

I made a few modifications to the website today: a new theme (isn’t it just fabulous, darling?), some pop-culture Easter Eggs hidden here and there and a few other things that I’m (naturally) forgetting now as I write them down. I’ll likely either remember them when the bill arrives or forget and yell at Dock for buying some audio gear. Such is the way my mind functions (or doesn’t) these days.

The old design was that – old. And while I love what a pine cone represents in relation to a creative process, it was time for a change. I’m making a lot of changes these days (new tattoo, lop off a fuckton of hair) and thought RM needed a fresher outlook on life. Or maybe I’m simply projecting as I recover from Kang’s Dark Days of December.

Way, way back in time, when Random Misanthrope was started, I think I went full-bore and signed up for premium-this and uber-that. Welp, Milkface is in private school now. I drive VWs instead of SAABs, the standard vacation is no longer to Swedenland and Random Misanthrope is run on economy scale because this bitch needs more money in the old retirement fund (Wow…do I sound like the Queen of the First World Probz or what?). This is my loquacious way of saying :lowers head in shame: there may be ads. I know. I’m so very sorry.

Usually, I do most of my scribbling of the thoughts on my laptop which has that marvelous Adblock plug-in. I don’t see the nasty, little fuckers when I’m reading RM. One night, as I lay in my bed trolling the internet on the iPad, I noticed the most offensive thing on Random Misanthrope – ads! Dafuq? For years I crowed that I would never let commerce encroach upon our artistic paradise for we are esteemed and dignified people. We are writers and poets, for fuck’s sake! We shall not sully our work with pedestrian and unnecessary twaddle. But here they were – ads. Ads on Random Misanthrope. This is more offensive than a pledge pin on a uniform!

When I changed the site design, I looked into the cost of blocking ads from RM. $30 annually. Oh, WordPress. Oh, silly, silly WordPress. All that AdBlock asks of its users is a donation and you are trying to shake me down for $30 when most people are already running AdBlock? Yeah. NO.

To those visiting us (all two, three, four of you) via tablets or mobile phones, please accept my most humble apologies for the ads and my unwillingness to pony up $30 per year. As it turns out, my integrity is much cheaper than I had initially thought.

I love my Kindle, and HDTV, and Spotify, and my smart phone, and the Internet, and my Transformer Prime tablet. I spend a lot of time using all that stuff. Almost all of my shopping for gifts, clothing, train and plane tickets, etc., is done online. For all its flaws, without Facebook I wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with anyone. Whenever I have a free moment during the course of my day, I’m most likely on my phone or my tablet. My mom and I used to email one another regularly, but increasingly these days we text. The instantaneous communication it offers is so much better than having to wait hours or even days for a response to an email. And naturally I keep in contact with all of my friends through Facebook and texting. With me living in Sweden those two things are absolutely indispensable for staying in touch with family and friends back in the United States.

And then there’s my dad, who’s just about the only person I know who is almost off the grid. He’s got a landline phone and a fixed address but that’s about it. He has no cell phone, and though he has a computer of sorts, it was manufactured sometime in the previous century, and is used mainly to play Tetris and Solitaire and not to access the internet. The thing is, though, is that I prefer him like this. I don’t want him to change. When I was still living in Oregon, I used to go and visit him for days at a time and always loved staying at his house on the coast and being totally unplugged.

However, I’ve had very little contact with him since I left the United States, but it’s not entirely his fault. Neither of us has made much of an effort to stay in touch. There have been a few phone calls but our main contact is still paper-based and amounts to one or two letters a year. Usually he encloses a check for several hundred dollars, which I endorse and immediately mail to my mother in California, who deposits said check in my American bank account.

This really is the most efficient way to deal with checks, which are used rarely, if at all in Sweden. I get my monthly salary deposited through bank transfer, as well as my tax refunds and all other payments, and all my bills are made online or through bank transfers. So when I get an actual check from the United States the way to deal with it involves a charmingly 20th-century process of using postage stamps and envelopes and mail boxes, all of which I don’t use very often anymore, so it’s fun in a quaintly nostalgic kind of way. Kind of like listening to music from the 90s or reading books made out of paper.

A couple of months ago, I got a check and a nice long letter from my dad, thanking me for the book of poetry I sent to him for Christmas. (I put this book together on Shutterfly, and put a lot of thought into the selection of the pieces and photographs. With the understanding that most people don’t like, appreciate or even get poetry, I felt comfortable sharing my work with only a few people, my mom and grandmother, my brother, sister, and my of course my dad. None of these poeple write poetry, but they know I do, and some of the pieces were quite personal and full of negative emotions.) I got busy (not in that way, you perv) as teachers often do at this time of year, and never got around to writing him back and thanking him for the $300 check. Then low and behold another envelope arrives a couple of days ago, this time with a $500 check and a one line message that reads, “Just because!” Now, I feel a bit sheepish. Or maybe like some other animal that doen’t write its semi-estranged father back in a timely manner.

With this additional amount of money, he’s now sent me enough money to buy a plane ticket to Portland to visit him. Perhaps this is supposed to be one giant hint, though I doubt it. He’s not the hint-giving type. I sat down at my computer and wrote him a letter. Not hand written, mind you. (Come on) I thanked him for the checks and informed him of my impending visit. It will probably be sometime in the fall. It’s just too expensive to travel during the summertime. The cost of a plane ticket more than doubles then due to the price gouging bastard airlines.

So it’s been, gosh, seven years since I last set foot in my dad’s house on the Oregon Coast. Seven years since I last saw the Pacific Northwest. I’m quite fond and familiar with it, you know, having lived there for the last ten years before moving abroad. I’ve got two degrees from the University of Oregon. GO DUCKS!!!

And my younger sister lives in Portland now, so that gives me another reason to visit that fair city. She manages a pub there, though I’m not sure which one. When I found that out, I got really excited. “I’m coming over!” I said.

As some of you might know I’m a bibliophile who is addicted to both print and ebooks. I’m also a tech geek so I have an Amazon Kindle, an Asus Netbook, an Apple iPad, and a Sony Pocket eReader. Though I love the smell, feel and look of real books, I am quite fond of the portability of electronic books. The best part of having a Sony eReader is the fact that I can electronically check out a book from my local library. Right now the selection is a bit limited, but I’m hoping as more and more people get eReaders, electronic borrowing from libraries will become more popular. I particularly like the fact that with eborrowing I don’t have to get a library book that somebody abused. I don’t know how many library books I have checked out that were stained, reeked of cigarette smoke, were falling apart, missing pages or were just plain nasty. No such thing with eborrowing.

Another great thing about eborrowing is that you can get some of the latest bestsellers without having to pay for them, just like you would checking out the latest paperback from your local library (free is not exactly true because your taxes are paying for it, but you get what I’m trying to say, right?). My local library, the Decatur Public Library, is part of the LibraryOnTheGo system. This system allows library patrons to use their library card to check out ebooks for one or two weeks. After that the books are no longer viewable on your electronic reader. You can “check out” up to three books at a time, and just like a regular library book, you have the option of returning the books before your due date. Returning ebooks electronically is a really neat feature because then you’re not stuck with having to wait to borrow a new book.

Eborrowing is very convenient. If it’s pouring down rain outside and you don’t feel like trekking down to the library, it’s comforting to know that you can just borrow the latest bestseller from the confines of your own home and curl up on your sofa. This is also very useful for people with mobility problems. The LibraryOnTheGo also allows library patrons to download audiobooks and other media with their library card. Pretty neat if you ask me.

If you don’t have a library card you can always find free ebooks online. I visit the MobileRead Forums every day for book tips, news about electronic readers, and for suggestions of where to find free ebooks. I suggest you check them out. Happy reading!